Muslim Anti-Semitism and Nazism

The New York Times reviews a book by German scholar Matthias Küntzel, Jihad and Jew Hatred. Küntzel traces the roots of Arab anti-Semitism to Nazi ideology. During World War II, two Arab leaders cooperated with the Nazis and spread their hatred: Haj Amin Al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, and Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jefferey Goldberg,who wrote the review, concludes:

Küntzel is right to state that we are witnessing a terrible explosion of anti-Jewish hatred in the Middle East, and he is right to be shocked. His invaluable contribution, in fact, is his capacity to be shocked, by the rhetoric of hate and by its consequences. The former Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi once told me that “the question is not what the Germans did to the Jews, but what the Jews did to the Germans.” The Jews, he said, deserved their punishment. Küntzel argues that we should see men like Rantisi for what they are: heirs to the mufti, and heirs to the Nazis.